| Original caption: “General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, accompanied by General Omar N. Bradley, and Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Junior, inspects art treasures stolen by Germans and hidden in salt mine in Germany.” Nazi officials and individual private owners used castles, private homes, air raid bunkers, and underground mines to shield public and private collections of art, cultural property, gold, jewelry and other valuables, many of which were later found to contain the property of Holocaust victims. In their final offensive against the Reich, American forces found enormous quantities of valuables scattered across southwestern Germany and Austria in large numbers of emergency repositories. The majority of these caches, which held anywhere from 1 to thousands of objects, had been created in response to the Allied bombing campaign that concentrated on German and Austrian urban areas. The threat of damage from aerial attacks had led Nazi officials to remove valuable assets from cities and store them in remote areas less likely to be targeted by Allied bombs. Although the exact number of caches falling under United States control remains unknown, in September 1948, the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS), the occupational authority, estimated that American forces had found approximately 1,500 repositories of art and cultural objects in Germany. These repositories contained approximately 10.7 1,000,000 objects worth an estimated 5,000,000,000 dollars. The discovery of loot and other valuables began almost immediately as the United States 9th, 1st, 3rd, and 7th Armies moved into Germany in the spring of 1945. On April 8, 1945, American forces discovered a massive stash of valuables hidden in a complex of interconnected potassium mines near Merkers, Germany. Deep within the mine, in a secret cavern behind a well-fortified masonry wall, the Americans unearthed a treasure trove containing tons of artworks and large quantities of gold, silver, and currency. At the time, they estimated that the gold found in the Merkers mine represented approximately 80 percent of the total gold held by the Reichsbank. By far the richest single stash uncovered, the Merkers mine yielded an immense quantity of assets, including an estimated 2.76 1,000,000,000 Reichsmark notes and containers brimming with foreign currency. The most gruesome find, however, was a section of the cavern devoted to Schutzstaffel (SS) loot containing 207 bags and suitcases filled with jewelry, silverware, teeth, watches, cigarette cases, and razors clearly taken from persecutees, including murdered inmates of concentration camps. Although Reichsbank accounting books revealed that much of the Merkers gold and currency had been seized from banks in occupied countries, the suitcases bearing loot were unmistakably taken from victims under duress. United States forces quickly secured the stash, and, on April 15, 1945, escorted the contraband deep into the American zone, where experts could organize, inventory, and appraise the assets in the new Foreign Exchange Depository in Frankfurt. The financial assets found in the Merkers mine stash included 3,682 bags and cartons of German currency, 80 bags of foreign currency, 63 bags of silver bars, 6 platinum bars, 8 bags of gold rings, 190 parcels containing engraving plates and dies, and 207 containers containing SS loot of jewelry, silverware, coins, stamps, dental fillings and miscellany. The combined weight of the precious and semi-precious stones and novelty jewelry alone was an estimated 2,527 pounds. United States Treasury experts, sent to evaluate the Merkers stash in June 1945, estimated that its value exceeded 500,000,000 dollars. Of this amount, they determined, gold and precious metals, mainly gold bullion and gold coins, alone comprised 300,000,000 dollars. Colonel Bernard Bernstein (November 20, 1908 – February 6, 1990) Financial Advisor in the Office of the Military Governor, United States (OMGUS) was tasked with analyzing and removing the Nazi gold, currency and art from the Merkers Mine and removing it to Frankfurt’s Reichsbank. On April 8, 1945, he arrived by Piper Cub in Rheims and drove the 85 miles (137 kilometers) to Merkers, which was to be in the Soviet Zone of Occupation. In a 10-day operation, Bernstein directed the removal of 569,726 pounds of gold, currency worth $519,805,802 American dollars, and 25 percent of Germany’s art museum collections. On April 12, the day after he set up his command post, Bernstein was told to be at the front gate of the Merkers Mine at 0900 Hours. United States Army General Omar Bradley (February 12, 1893 – April 9, 1981), Commander, 12th Army Group; General Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower (October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969), Supreme Commander, SHAEF; and General George S. Patton (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945), Commander, 3rd Army, all arrived in 1 jeep. Descending 1,600 feet (4,900 meters), the party inspected the currency, gold, and artwork. The tour lasted an hour. General Eisenhower had just viewed “Waldweg im Spätherbst” (“Forest Path in Late Autumn”) painted circa 1900 by German impressionist Olof Jernberg (May 23, 1855 – February 15, 1935) which is now in the collections of the Nationalgalerie Berlin. The painting in the middle cannot be identified. He was about to view “Die Freiheit (Helvetia)” by Arnold Böcklin (October 16, 1827 – January 16, 1901) painted in 1891 for the 6 100th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation. Patton was not impressed by the artwork. He later wrote in his diary, “The ones I saw were worth, in my opinion, about two dollars and fifty cents, and were of the type normally seen in bars in America.” The general was referring to hundreds of the world’s greatest paintings. At 1 point Eisenhower noticed some writing on the wall. It was in German, and he asked Bernstein to translate. Although Bernstein didn’t know German, he knew enough Yiddish to read it: “The state is everything and the individual is nothing.” “What an appalling doctrine,” Eisenhower’s reply. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0877.jpg |
| Image Size | 790.94 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2340 x 2886 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | United States Army Signal Corps |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | April 12, 1945 |
| Location | Kaiseroda Salt Mine Complex |
| City | Merkers |
| State or Province | Thuringia |
| Country | Germany |
| Archive | National Archives and Records Administration |
| Record Number | NWDNS-111-SC-204516 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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